Historically, the Great Lakes supported large and diverse cisco populations until overfishing, establishment of invasive species, and habitat loss resulted in large-scale extirpation during the mid 19th century. Managers have prioritized recovery of cisco in Lake...
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Planning
Site fidelity, depth-habitat use, and reproductive behavior of ciscoes in Grand Traverse Bay, Lake Michigan
Our study of the movement ecology of Grand Traverse Bay Cisco commenced in late November 2019 with the deployment of 40 acoustic receivers and tagging of 85 adult-sized individuals sampled from spawning shoals near Elk Rapids, MI, and Ingalls Pt. near Omena, MI...
Kiyi reproductive phenology in Lake Superior
Kiyi historically occurred in Lakes Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior. Today they occur in Lake Superior. Reestablishing Kiyi into lakes where it went extinct is a topic of discussion among Laurentian Great Lakes fishery managers. An impediment to re-introducing...
Quantifying a potential mechanism between ice cover and cisco recruitment success: what role does light play in cisco embryonic development and larval survival?
Over the past several decades, Coregonus recruitment has dwindled to unprecedented levels for unknown reasons. Coregonus species are fall spawners whose embryos incubate under ice throughout the winter and hatch in spring. Recent changes in ice cover coupled with poor...
Comparing genetic population structure of Great Lakes cisco and lake whitefish to help determine restoration targets
Species diversity is necessary for the maintenance of sustainable fisheries because differential use of habitats can help buffer against unpredictable conditions. Therefore, an important first step to maintaining or restoring species diversity is describing extant...
Contemporary habitat selection and survival of cisco in Lake Erie
This project addressed impediments to the rehabilitation of Cisco (Coregonus artedi) in Lake Erie through the application of acoustic telemetry to develop novel data on habitat use and survival of experimentally stocked fish. We tagged Cisco at the Tunison Laboratory...
Morphologic, geographic and genetic variation among Lake Superior ciscoes
The Laurentian Great Lakes once contained a diverse endemic cisco complex, but a series of factors resulted in declines in diversity and now Lake Superior is the only Great Lake with a relatively intact cisco complex. Although the large, pelagic cisco, Coregonus...
Redesigning nearshore and offshore fish community protocols to incorporate new species identification approaches and determine optimal sampling strategies
The objective of this work was to begin the process of describing Lake Superior larval ciscoe population dynamics at the species level, something which was not possible prior to 2019 (Ackiss et al. 2020) and use this information to develop standard collection...